EDITORIAL: Off Camera, Off Mike

Now that a series of mayoral forums, televised and
otherwise, is well under way, ample opportunities present themselves for
Memphians to judge the candidates and choose between them. We can lament, as the
principal challengers all have, the refusal of incumbent Mayor Willie Herenton
to take part in these joint encounters, but His Honor is clearly resolved not
to, and that's that.

The usual reason why an incumbent ducks debate
opportunities with opponents is to deny them a valuable form of publicity they
could not achieve on their own. That doesn't seem to be the case here, as Carol
Chumney, Herman Morris, and John Willingham are all sufficiently well known in
their own right already. (See Politics, "In the Spotlight.") What Mayor Herenton seems to be
doing instead - spending a disproportionate amount of time in the inner city,
where he autographs campaign T-shirts and mixes informally with the crowds at
mass rallies -- is concentrating on husbanding his African-American base.

Fair enough - though in a close race it may turn out to be
shortsighted for the mayor not even to make an effort to maintain the inroads he
made among white Memphians in several previous elections. Granted, these voters
- along with middle-class blacks, for that matter - seem to have become
discontented with Herenton. Or so the polls suggest. But it's sad all the same
to see the mayor return to the kind of color-based and potentially divisive
electoral math that prevailed during his race with then incumbent Dick Hackett
in 1991.

But at least the mayor is, for better or for worse, giving
full rein on his campaign rounds to his authentic personality - by turns
animated, macho, and (where his opponents are concerned) wickedly scornful.
Though several of the also-rans in the mayoral race are showing their true
colors, too (again, see Politics, "In the Spotlight."), the only one of the major contenders
who seems consistently able to do so is curmudgeonly former county commissioner
John Willingham.

Since, however - to state it baldly - the only candidates
who seem to have a real chance of unseating Mayor Herenton are Chumney and
Morris, it would be helpful to the electorate if those two hopefuls could also
loosen up a bit.

In public, both Chumney and Morris seem afflicted with a
much too formal manner - in Chumney's case, with a sensible-shoes approach that
seems intended to underscore the seriousness of her candidacy; in Morris', with
a natural reserve that reflects his thoughtful, introverted nature.

Two recent appearances before private groups have shown a
different side to both candidates, though. Talking to a small meet-and-greet
crowd at a supporter's house, Chumney, speaking casually but evidently from the
heart, told a chatty but moving and empathetic tale about the homeless people
she knows personally. It was the antithesis of "canned." Simultaneously, at a
private fundraising affair, Morris was delivering himself of a passionate and
seemingly spontaneous analogy of 21st-century Memphians, anxious about crime, to
their counterparts of the 1870's trying desperately to hold on to life and order
and family in the face of the devastating Yellow Fever epidemics of that time.
He flat got down.

Unbuckle a
little bit more in public, Carol, Herman. It will help us decide. Really.